Anger: as a Weapon, Brave or Reckless?
Scientists believe that the capacity for anger has been hardwired into the brain over millions of years of evolution. Anger can trigger the body’s fight or flight response, causing the adrenal glands to flood the body with stress hormones, preparing us for physical aggression. But whether we actually end up swearing or scowling or even punching someone depends on a second brain area, the prefrontal cortex, that is responsible for decision-making and reasoning. This puts our anger in context, reminds us to behave in socially acceptable ways and for most of us, most of the time, keeps our primal instincts in check.
It is true that anger can destroy a person, cause severe harm to your mental health, cause depression, alter your views, change the way you think, make you hate somebody and sometimes even risk your lives. When we feel angry, we tend to think more negatively and in a more prejudiced way about outsiders. Angry people tend to seek someone to blame. Anger can make us brave or reckless.
Anger always has a negative reputation when compared to positive emotions such as happiness, enthusiasm, love and hope. Many of us believe we would be better off without anger as an emotion. However, that's not very true, many psychologists, brain scientists, and mental health professionals have suggested that anger has it's own valuable qualities and can be beneficial to the human condition. Anger is not just aggressive reaction. When we loose our temper, our capacity to adapt the pain increases even more, we get through the worst. Yet, of course, extreme anger can be detrimental to our well-being.
I know most of you must be disagreeing with me right now, you might be having questions like, "anger causes stress" "anger causes anxiety" "anger causes depression" "how is it even beneficial" so let me tell you, anger can serve as a powerful motivator, it provides us a sense of control, it also energizes us, it motivates us to solve our problems, it makes us aware of injustice, anger improves our negotiating positions, it covers our painful feelings, makes us even more stronger and invulnerable. In a 2010 study, Dutch scientists showed volunteers pictures of objects such as pens and mugs on a computer screen interspersed with subliminal images of angry or neutral faces. When an angry face had flashed up first, people rated objects as more desirable and worked harder to win them in a subsequent game. Interestingly, the participants were not consciously aware of this motivation – they said they just liked the objects more. Science suggests there could be some benefits for the angry individual, if not for society at large.
"....... anger, like a fire, is a primal force, when left unchecked, it can be destructive, yet when managed and used wisely, it can be a beneficial and powerful instrument that leads to enlightenment…."
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